


White Noise

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Episode: s11e18 Hell's Angel, Headspace, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 23:12:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6491161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is trying not to be a burden, so he follows Dean’s instructions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Noise

**Author's Note:**

> hey so did i mention i'm eternally grateful to [cecilia](http://femmechester.tumblr.com/) for constantly helping me produce higher-quality Suffering
> 
> [hellosaidthemoon](http://hellosaidthemoonisafangirl.tumblr.com/) also made [this lovely piece of artwork](http://hellosaidthemoonisafangirl.tumblr.com/post/142453702414/) based on this fic, so please check it out!!

“Dean.”

His name is the first thing Cas says when Lucifer is gone and he has regained control over his own voice. It sounds strange to his own ears, as though during the weeks he was absent, his body has forgotten what he sounds like.

Dean is clinging to him fiercely, arms around his back, fingers of one hand digging into his side, fingers of the other grasping at the hair at the back of his neck. Dean is holding him up. Dean is holding onto him so tightly that he thinks it should hurt, but he barely even feels it.

Everything feels fake, like he’s watching it on an old TV, like he’s trying to pick up images and sounds and sensations through the static. Dean is holding onto him and he’s saying, “You idiot. You goddamn idiot.” His voice keeps catching and breaking. _Must be bad reception,_ Cas thinks.

Dean is hugging him like he’s relieved, but he’s talking to him like he’s angry. Cas thinks, _I’m getting mixed signals._ He wishes Dean would pick one channel or the other. He can’t watch two at once. He doesn’t know which is right.

He decides to trust the anger. He understands he did something wrong. That he still cannot trust himself to do the right thing. That what he thought was helping was just making things harder. He is always making things harder for the Winchesters.

“I’m sorry,” Cas says. It feels like someone else is talking, like he is still listening to someone else using his own voice. He wonders if perhaps he spent long enough hiding in a small corner of his own mind that he’s forgotten how to fill out the rest of this body. He wonders if he’ll spend the rest of his life feeling like it still belongs to someone else. It would be a shame, seeing as he was just getting used to viewing it as his own. Still, it would be a mercy, as far as punishments go.

Cas’ head is still on Dean’s shoulder. He wishes he were present enough to enjoy the sensation, to find it comforting. He says, “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says, and then Sam is there, too, and Dean is saying, “Let’s go home.” He says it with his face pressed against the side of Cas’ head, his mouth by his ear, but Cas understands Dean is talking to Sam. He would, of course, very much like to go home, but he is sure he is not welcome there. There is no reason for him to be welcome.

Sam and Dean pull him to his feet. He leans heavily on them, unable to support his own weight. He is reliant upon them and at their mercy, he knows. He is a burden to them. He wonders where they’re taking him, where they will get rid of him. Regardless of where it is, he’s simply going to let it happen. He has resigned himself to that. The sooner he can stop being their problem, the better. It is taking long enough already. “I’m so sorry,” he says.

“Stop,” Dean says, tightening his grip on Cas’ waist as he helps drag him to the car. “Stop saying that.”

Cas knows that this is not the same as saying he doesn’t have anything to apologize for. In this, at least, Dean is coming in loud and clear.

Cas sits in the back seat of the Impala in silence, once he has been deposited there. He tries to get himself back on the right frequency, to focus on the conversation Sam and Dean are having. Dean keeps looking at him in the rear view mirror.

“You okay?” Dean asks, finally, as though he’s concerned, but the angle of his eyebrows, the grim set to his jaw, still say he’s angry. Cas is used to these contradictions with Dean, the actions and words that disagree. He’s seen something like this before: Dean looking at him like he wants him to stay and asking him to leave.

“I’m fine,” Cas says. He lies down in the back seat so he doesn’t have to look at Dean looking at him any more. He listens to the low hum of their voices, the cadences familiar even if he can’t pick out the words.

The next thing he knows, he’s waking up to Dean’s hand on his shoulder, Dean saying, “Hey, let’s get you inside, okay?”

He doesn’t have the energy to protest, so he nods. He lets Dean help him up out of the back seat, pull his arm over his shoulder to help support his weight. He is surprised to find himself in the bunker.

Sam must already be inside, he thinks, as they walk down the stairs from the garage. Maybe Sam is preparing whatever room they’re going to lock him in so he can’t screw things up any more than he already has.

“Where are you going to put me?” Cas asks, as Dean sets his bag down on a table.

“Put you?” Dean says. A string of expressions flicker over his face too fast for Cas to follow. If he were a character on a show, that kind of complex series of feelings would make Cas pause the TV, rewind, watch it over and over again until he understood. There is no pause here, just the end expression Dean settles on. The frown, the tired eyes. Dean says, “We’re...we’re not _putting_ you anywhere, Cas. You’re coming with me. I’m not letting you out of my sight. I’m not making that mistake again.”

“Oh,” Cas says. That makes sense, he thinks. It makes sense Dean wouldn’t trust him to be left to his own devices. He doesn’t trust himself, either. It’s for the best.

He lets himself be led out of the room, down the hallway, through a doorway. It is only when Dean deposits him on the edge of his bed that Cas realizes where he is.

“Why are we in your room?” he asks.

Dean breathes out a laugh, short and humorless, like something scripted. He says, “I need to sleep, man, I’m beat. And you don’t look like you’re doing much better.”

Cas doesn’t know what to say to that. He trusts Dean’s assessment of his current state. He doesn’t plan to argue. “Oh,” he says. “Okay.”

Dean hunches down in front of him. He tugs on the lapel of Cas’ coat. He says, “Let’s get you out of these clothes, okay?”

Cas looks down at himself, at the fabric stained with blood and dirt. He hadn’t noticed, and even if he had, he doesn’t have the energy to clean them up. Dean’s request makes sense, Cas thinks. He’s filthy. And Dean has been watching Lucifer wear these clothes for weeks now. Of course he wouldn’t want to look at them any more. He wouldn’t want that reminder, not after everything Lucifer has done to Sam. “All right,” Cas says. He starts trying to slip out of his jacket. He still feels like he’s using someone else’s limbs. It isn’t going very well.

“Let me help you,” Dean says, and by the time Cas manages to say “okay,” Dean is already sliding Cas’ coat down his arms. He helps him out of one piece of clothing after another, steadying him with one hand when he sways in place.

Dean leaves Cas’ clothes in a heap on the floor. He rummages through his own drawers for a moment, and then he’s back at Cas’ side, helping him into a pair of loose sweatpants and a worn t-shirt.

When Dean is done, he stands in front of Cas, a hand still on his shoulder to steady him. “I gotta get changed,” he says. “Go ahead and lie down.”

Cas is not in a position to argue, but he is having trouble understanding what Dean wants him to do. He’s still waiting to find out what Dean intends to do with him. He says, “Lie down where?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “The bed, Cas,” he says. “Jesus. Just lie down.”

He is trying not to be a burden, so he follows Dean’s instructions. He pulls back the covers and slides under them, pulls them up to his chin obediently. He shifts onto his side and watches as Dean changes out of his jacket and jeans and boots and into clothes like the ones he gave Cas. He has watched a lot of television, recently, but he still hasn’t found anything as interesting to watch as Dean. He’s moving more slowly right now than he usually does, though. He’s moving as though he’s exhausted, as though he used up all of his energy helping Cas and doesn’t have any left for himself. Cas watches, and he thinks, _I’m sorry._

Dean finishes changing. He turns to look down at Cas. He hesitates, and Cas is wondering if this is finally the part where Dean tells him to get out. Instead, he says, “I’m gonna lay next to you, okay?”

Cas is not in any position to be telling Dean what to do. He says, “It’s your bed.”

“That’s not--” Dean starts, then stops. He sighs. He drags both hands through his hair, closes his eyes. “Okay,” he says, softly, as though to himself. “Okay.”

Dean walks around the bed, turns off the light, settles onto the other side of the mattress. The memory foam makes it so Cas can hardly feel Dean lying there on the bed next to him. The only way he knows Dean is still there is by the sound of his breathing, so quiet that Cas has to strain to hear it. So quiet that all of this may as well be happening to someone else.

Cas wakes suddenly, and it is as though all of his senses start coming back to him at once, like he is finally experiencing them firsthand again instead of watching them happen to someone on TV. He can feel Dean’s memory foam mattress underneath him, the way it dips under his weight, molds itself around his body. He can feel the fabric of Dean’s clothes soft against his skin, can smell Dean everywhere, in the fabric and the blankets and the air. He can feel Dean pressed against his back, his arm thrown over Cas’ waist, his measured breath warm against the back of Cas’ neck.

It’s too much. He is trying to work out what it means and coming up with only one answer. But this isn’t a TV show where everyone gets a happy ending. He must be mistaken. It can’t mean what he wants it to mean. He is terrified of it meaning anything else.

There’s something building in his chest that he doesn’t recognize. It’s been so long since he has felt anything like this. Maybe he has never felt quite like this before.

Cas’ breath catches, over and over, like in his absence his body has forgotten how to breathe, too.

Dean inhales deeply behind Cas as he shifts to consciousness, and then there is Dean’s voice so close to him, there is Dean saying, “Cas? You all right?” There is unmistakeable concern laced through every word. Cas doesn’t know how to respond.

“Hey,” Dean says, and then he’s pulling away, and before Cas has time to be afraid, Dean is touching his arm, gently urging Cas to roll over and face him.

Cas dares to look at him. His vision is blurry, but it feels clearer than it has in months. He can see that the concern on Dean’s face matches the concern in his voice.

Dean settles back down next to him, their faces inches apart on the pillow. He slides an arm under and around Cas’ waist, pulling him close, and lifts the other to his face. He brushes Cas’ hair away from his forehead. He brushes his thumb under Cas’ eye, across his cheekbone.

“You’re crying,” Dean says.

Cas reaches his hand up, places it over Dean’s where it still rests on the side of his face. “I’m okay,” Cas says.

Dean frowns. Concerned, not angry. “You sure?”

Cas thinks about it. He thinks about Dean coming for him, Dean bringing him home, Dean inviting him into his room. Dean’s hand on his face, Dean’s legs tangled with his own. He nods.

“Okay,” Dean says. “I’m glad.”

Dean shifts again, moves even closer so that their foreheads are pressed together. He has his eyes closed. He’s smiling, ever so slightly. He adds, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Cas feels the static clearing.


End file.
